Mark Walsh is a contributing writer to Education Week. He has covered legal issues in education for more than two decades. He writes about school-related cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and in lower courts.

9th Circuit to Reexamine Student Strip-Search Case

A federal appeals court today said it would take a fresh look at a case in which a student is challenging being strip-searched by school officials looking for prescription drugs.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, said in a brief order that the full court had voted to rehear the case of Redding v. Safford Unified School District.

The full court essentially set aside this September 2007 decision by a three-judge 9th Circuit panel that upheld the Safford, Ariz., district and various school officials over the student search.

According to that decision, middle school student Savanna Redding was searched as part of an investigation into prescription drug possession by students at the school in 2003. After receiving a report that Redding had been distributing Ibuprofen pills to fellow students, school officials searched the girl's backpack, then asked a female administrative assistant to search Redding's clothing. Redding had to remove her pants, lift the waist band of her underpants, and lift her shirt and pull out her bra band, according to court papers. No contraband was found.

Redding and her parents challenged the school officials' actions as a violation of her Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches.

The 9th Circuit panel ruled 2-1 that the search was reasonable and that school officials were protected by qualified immunity. The dissenting judge said Supreme Court precedents in the area should give parents assurance that "their children will not be stripped and searched for giving another student the equivalent of two Advils."

Because the 9th Circuit court has such a large number of judges, its "en banc" rehearings don't usually involve all of the court's judges, but simply a larger number than the three-judge panel that originally heard the case.

4 Comments

Here is a conflict between the rights of people to have privacy and the schools attempt to prevent more students becoming addicted or even dying from prescription drugs.

As the director of Novus Medical Detox, we see many people addicted to OxyContin, legal heroin, who just did what they were told by their doctors. This is one reason that Purdue Pharma paid fines of $600+ million for falsely promoting OxyContin.

Some people's DNA and metabolism does make them more susceptible to dependence and addiction and either way the withdrawal is painful. We now have protocols that make it much more comfortable but the real problem is treating the symptoms and not the cause. I was told in the 1980's that I would be on pain killers but I found other solutions and have not taken them.

Lets face it the judiciary is entrenched and cultivated for its own use and currently beyond recognition whether it be the bar associations,the judicial disipline boards,nominating commitees, lower inferior courts etc etc there all in collusion,they are but an illusion controlled by the same perpetrators, you tell me where in the constitution it provides immunity for a chosen few,the constitution provides equality and accountability for all. This case although not unique is another example of a judiciary knowingly or should have known violating constitutional rights. By the way every athority in america wheather it be judges,lawyers etc etc taking there oath states they will uphold the constitution, consequently any one who hide's behind immunity is in violation of there oath and there desicions are null and void !
WAKE UP AMERICA THE THE PROBLEM RESTS AT THE FOOT OF THE JUDICIARY.
WHO DO YOU THING WILL POLICE THE EXECUTIVE AND LEGISLATIVE BRANCH ?